.JA9 



Qass 




Book. 



State of Montana 

Public School Teachers' 
Retirement Salary Fund Act 

Approved March 8th, 1915 



RETIREMENT SALARY FUND BOARD 

H. A. DAVEE, Superintendent of Public Instruction, Chairman 

W. C. RAE, State Treasurer 

J. B. POINDEXTER, Attorney General 

H. H. SWAIN, Secretary of the Board 

HELENA, MONTANA 



Public School Teachers' Retirement Salary Fund 

Act 



CHAPTER 95. 

"An Act creating certain funds in the State Treasury to 
provide for retirement of public school teachers ; providing 
for the creation of these funds by contributions from teach- 
ers, investment of funds, gifts to funds, and appropria- 
tions ; providing for the custody and management of these 
funds ; providing for the collection, condition of investment 
and condition of distribution of the funds; providing for 
the creation of boards to have charge of the funds, and 
prescribing the duties and powers of such boards; provid- 
ing for place of meeting of such board; providing for help 
and expenditures for such board in meeting and carrying 
out the provisions of this Act; providing conditions under 
which teachers may receive distribution of these funds 
including the amount of time and term of payment." 

Be it Enacted by the Legislative Assembly of the State of 
Montana: 

Section 1. There are hereby established two funds in the 
State Treasury to be known, respectively, as the Public School 
Teachers' Retirement Salary Fund and the Public School 
Teachers' Permanent Fund. The Public School Teachers' 
Permanent Fund shall be made up of all moneys received 
from the following sources or derived in the following 
manner : 

(1) All contributions made by teachers as hereinafter 
provided : 

(2) The income and interest derived from the invest- 
ment of the moneys contained in such fund: 

(3) All donations, legacies, gifts and bequests which shall 
be made to such fund, and all moneys which shall be obtained 
or contributed for the same purposes from other sources { 

(4) Appropriations made by the State Legislature from 
time to time to carry into effect the purposes of this Act. 

Section 2. The Public School Teachers' Retirement Salary 
Fund shall be made up of such moneys as shall be transferred 

JUN.29 1315 






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j from time to time, under authority of this Act, from the 
Public School Teachers' Permanent Fund. 

Section 3. It shall be the duty of the State Treasurer 
when notified by the Public School Teachers' Retirement 
Salary Fund Board, or by the State Superintendent of Public 
Instruction, under authority of this Act, to make such trans- 
fers of such amounts from the Public School Teachers' Per- 
manent Fund to the Public School Teachers' Retirement Sal- 
ary Fund, as will be sufficient to meet the claims which may 
be legally drawn against said Public School Teachers' Retire- 
ment Salary Fund. 

Section 4. There shall be deducted from the salary of 
every teacher, subject to the provisions of this Act, one dol- 
lar from the compensation paid to such teacher for every 
month for which such teacher receives compensation, and 
every official whose duty it is to pay such teachers' salary 
shall make said deduction at the time of payment and shall 
at the end of each quarter draw a warrant in favor of the 
State Treasurer for the amounts deducted. The amounts 
thus deducted shall be deposited in the State Treasury to the 
credit of the Public School Teachers' Permanent Fund, and 
shall constitute a part thereof. 

Section 5. No person shall be eligible to receive the bene- 
fits of this Act who shall not have paid into said Public 
School Teachers' Permanent Fund an amount equal to twelve 
dollars for each year of service, up to and including twenty- 
five years; provided, however, that the difference between 
the amount actually paid by such teacher of twenty-five 
years' service and three hundred dollars may be paid into 
said fund by such teacher at the time of retirement, with 
the same effect as if the full sum of three hundred dollars 
had been paid at rate of twelve dollars per year before re- 
tirement ; or the sum of twenty dollars per month be withheld 
from such teacher's retirement salary until the amount so 
withheld shall equal the difference between the said sum of 
three hundred dollars and the amount theretofore paid into 
said fund by such teacher. 

Section 6. The Superintendent of Public Instruction, the 
Treasurer and the Attorney General of the State of Montana, 
shall constitute the Public School Teachers' Retirement Salary 
Fund Board. 



Section 7. The Public School Teachers', Retirement Salary 
Fund Board, subject to the provisions of this Act, shall have 
power .'and it shall be its duty: 

(1) To approve and allow retirement salaries to public 
school teachers and certain school officers entitled to the 
same under the provisions of this Act. 

(2) Through one of its members designated by it for that 
purpose, to certify all claims and demands against the Public 
School Teachers' Permanent Fund and the Public School 
Teachers' Retirement Salary Fund, including all retirement 
salary demands to the State Board of Examiners, who shall 
audit same and direct the State Auditor to draw his warrant 
therefor upon the State Treasurer, payable out of said fund; 
provided that no demand shall be allowed except after resolu- 
tion duly passed at a meeting of the Board by a majority of 
its members, which adoption shall be attested by the 
secretary. 

(3) To require the boards of education, school trustees 
and other public authorities, and all officers having duties 
to perform in respect to the contributions by teachers to said 
permanent fund, to report to the Board from time to time 
as to such matters pertaining to the payment of such con- 
tributions as it may deem advisable. 

(4) . To invest the moneys in the permanent fund in secur- 
ities, and to collect the income therefrom and interest and 
dividends thereon; to deposit such securities with the State 
Treasurer, and to make sale of such securities when in its 
judgment such sale will be advisable; provided that none of 
the moneys in the Public School Teachers' Permanent Fund 
shall be invested in any securities except such as are legally 
designated for investment in the public school fund. 

All bonds, mortgages and other securities shall be deposited 
with and remain in the custody of the State Treasurer, who 
shall collect all interest due thereon, and all the income there- 
from, as the same shall become due and payable. The State 
Auditor is authorized to draw his warrant upon the Public 
School Teachers' Permanent Fund in payment of duly audited 
claims arising out of the investment of the moneys in such 

fund. 

(5) To appoint a secretary from the office force of the 
State Superintendent of Public Instruction and prescribe the 
duties of such secretary. 



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(6). To conduct investigations in all matters relating to 
the operation of this Act, and to subpoena witnesses and com- 
pel their attendence to testify before it in respect to such 
matters. 

Section 8. Said Public School Teachers' Retirement Salary 
Fund Board shall meet at least once every three months and 
at such quarterly meeting shall make a list of all persons 
entitled to payment out of the fund established by this Act, 
and enter said list in a book to be kept by the Board for 
that purpose, to be known as the "Public School Teachers' 
Retirement Salary Fund Record." Said list shall be certified 
as correct by the chairman and secretary of the Board, and 
shall always be open to public inspection. In the performance 
of the duties of the Board each member and secretary there- 
of may administer oaths and affirmations to witnesses and 
others transacting business with the Board. 

Section 9. The said Public School Teachers' Retirement 
Salary Fund Board shall hold its meetings at the office of the 
State Superintendent of Public Instruction. It shall be entitled 
to the use of the offices of the said State Superintendent, 
who is empowered to employ such additional help and make 
such expenditures for stationery, stamps, etc., as may be 
necessary for the creation, maintenance and enforcement of 
this Act, for which the Legislature shall be requested to make 
such appropriations as may from time to time be deemed 
necessary. 

Section 10. The board shall make rules and regulations 
not inconsistent with the provisions of this Act, which shall 
have the force and effect of law. Such rules and regulations 
shall : 

(1). Provide for the conduct and regulation of the meet- 
ings of the Board and the operation of the business thereof; 

(2). Provide for the enforcement and carrying into effect 
of the provisions of this act: 

(3). Establish a system of accounts, showing the con- 
dition of the Public School Teachers' Permanent Fund and 
the Public School Teachers' Retirement Salary Fund, and re- 
ceipts and disbursements for and on account of said funds; 

(4). Prescribe the form of warrants, vouchers, receipts, 
reports and accounts to be used in respect to said funds ; 



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(5). Regulate the duties of boards of education, school 
trustees and other school authorities, imposed upon them by 
this Act, in respect to the contribution by teachers to the 
Public School Teachers' Permanent Fund, and the deduction of 
such contributions from the teachers' salaries. 

Section 11. In addition to the powers hereinabove enumer- 
ated said Board shall make and enforce all necessary and 
proper rules and regulations for the method or methods of 
applying for and obtaining retirement salaries provided for 
in this Act, and for the method or methods of determining 
the right of each applicant to such retirement salary; provid- 
ed, however, that in all cases legal proof of all necessary facts 
shall be required and kept on file. 

Section 12. The County Superintendent shall report to 
the State Superintendent of Public Instruction, before the 
fifteenth day of July of each year, the names of all persons 
claiming and the amount that will be required during the 
current fiscal year to pay the retirement salaries to be paid 
in such district or county, and said State Superintendent of 
Public Instruction shall determine from said reports the en- 
tire amount required to pay said retirement salaries during 
said current fiscal year. He shall report the amount required 
to make such payments to the Public School Teachers' Re- 
tirement salary Fund Board, and thereupon after verifying 
or correcting same, said Board shall notify the State Treas- 
urer, and by resolution, duly adopted, shall direct him to make 
transfer of the needed amount from the Public School Teach- 
ers' Permanent Fund to the Public School Teachers' Retire- 
ment Salary Fund. It shall be the duty of the State Treasur- 
er thereupon to make such transfer. When claims for pay- 
ment of retirement salaries have been duly audited under 
the provisions of this Act, the State Auditor shall draw his 
warrant therefor upon the said Public School Teachers' 
Retirement Salary Fund ; provided, that no retirement salary, 
under the provisions of this Act, shall be paid on or before 
the first day of January, 1919. 

Section 13. Every public, state or county school teacher 
who shall have served as a legally qualified teacher in 
public, state or county, day or evening schools or partly 
as such teacher and partly as state or county or city 
superintendent or supervising executive or educational ad- 



ministrator for at least twenty-five school years at least 
fifteen of which shall have been in the schools, as here- 
inbefore specified, of this State, including the last ten years 
of actual service unless leave of absence shall have been 
granted by proper school authorities, shall be entitled to 
retirement, no time included in such leave of absence to be 
reckoned as time of service. Upon retirement such teacher 
shall be entitled to receive during life an annual retirement 
salary of Six Hundred ($600.00) Dollars, payable in install- 
ments quarterly by warrants drawn as provided in this Act. 

Provided, the teachers in the service of the State at the 
time of the passage of this Act, who shall have served in 
states other than this, shall, at the end of twenty-five years' 
service the last ten of which shall be in this State as herein- 
before provided, be entitled to the benefits of this Act. 

Section 14. Any legally qualified public state, or county 
school teacher who shall have served as such or in the 
capacity of school officer as hereinbefore specified for at 
least fifteen school years in the public schools or school offi- 
ces as specified above, of this State, and who shall, by reason 
of bodily or mental infirmity, have become physically or men- 
tally incapacitated for further school service, shall be entitled 
to retire, or may, by the Board of Education, school trustees 
or other school authorities employing such teacher, be com- 
pelled to retire. Upon such retirement, voluntary or invol- 
untary, such teacher shall be entitled to receive, during the 
period of such disability, an annual retirement salary, which 
shall bear the same proportion to Six Hundred ($600.00) 
Dollars as is borne by the number of years of said teacher's 
time of service to twenty-five years. 

Section 15. In counting the actual time of service for the 
purpose of this Act, the Public School Teachers' Retirement 
Salary Fund Board shall determine what constitutes a school 
year. 

Section 16. This Act shall be binding upon all teachers em- 
ployed in the public, state or county schools of this State at 
the time of the approval of this Act, as shall on or before 
January 1st, 1916, sign and deliver to the Superintendent of 
Public Instruction, or to the County Superintendent, a notifi- 
cation that said teachers agree to be bound by and avail them- 
selves of the benefits of this Act. 



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Section 17. This Act shall be binding upon all teachers 
elected or appointed to teach in the public schools of this 
State after the approval of this Act, who, not being in the 
service of the public schools at the time of the approval of 
this Act, were not competent to sign or deliver the notifica- 
tion specified in the preceding section. 

Section 18. If any teacher retired under the provisions 
of this Act, shall be re-employed in the public schools of this 
or of any other state, such teacher's retirement salary shall 
not be paid for or during such period of employment; and 
if any teacher having qualified under Section 14 of this Act, 
returns to service in the public schools of the State and there- 
after qualifies under this Act, there shall be deducted from 
the retirement salary payable to such teacher under the pro- 
visions hereof the amount of retirement salary theretofore 
actually received by such teacher under the provisions hereof, 
such amount to be so deducted in equal quarterly installments 
until the whole amount so received shall have been deducted ; 
provided, however, that the amount of such deductions to 
be made quarterly shall not exceed thirty-five dollars. 

Section 19. No one shall be permitted to draw from the 
State, directly or indirectly, more than one retirement salary. 
Nothing in this Act shall be so construed, however, as to pre- 
vent local communities or bodies of teachers from supplement- 
ing the retirement salary received from the State. 

Section 20. Should the courts declare any section of this 
Act unconstitutional or unauthorized by law or in conflict 
with any other provision of this Act, then such decision shall 
affect only the section or provision so declared to be uncon- 
stitutional or void, and shall not effect any other section or 
part of this Act. 

Section 21. All Acts and parts of Acts in conflict with the 
provisions of this Act are hereby repealed. 

Section 22. This Act shall be in full force and effect from 
and after its passage and approval. 

Approved March 8, 1915. 



